I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.

(quoted by Carol Lynn Pearson in Consider the Butterfly)”
― Deepak Chopra, Synchrodestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles

Hens

by SARAH DAY

I love the way you pose like weathervaneson the axe handle,to watch as I wash disheshow today’s menu, or tonicis borage or bindweed or dockthat you will strip backto a handful of cellulose spikes.The way you share a laying boxwhen there is one for each of youand midwife one anotherthrough your confinements.The way you lay eggs –those warm white ellipseson the straw.Somehow for all the wreckagethe garden was never more alive.

“Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”

“People say, ‘I’m going to sleep now,’ as if it were nothing. But it’s really a bizarre activity. ‘For the next several hours, while the sun is gone, I’m going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command over everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will resume my life.’

If you didn’t know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a science fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all your friends about the movie you’d seen.

They had these people, you know? And they would walk around all day and be OK? And then, once a day, usually after dark, they would lie down on these special platforms and become unconscious. They would stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their minds they would have adventures and experiences that were completely impossible in real life. As they lay there, completely vulnerable to their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally shift from one position to another; or, if one of the ‘mind adventures’ got too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren’t unconscious anymore. Then they would drink a lot of coffee.’

So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you’re in a science fiction movie. And whisper, ‘The creature is regenerating itself.”

You are just now, here, neither coming nor going. Everything passes by you; your consciousness reflects it but it does not get identified. When a lion roars in front of a mirror, do you think the mirror roars? Or when the lion is gone and a child comes dancing, the mirror completely forgets about the lion and starts dancing with the child–do you think the mirror dances with the child? The mirror does nothing, it simply reflects. Your consciousness is only a mirror. Neither do you come, nor do you go. Things come and go. You become young, you become old; you are alive, you are dead. All these states are simply reflections in an eternal pool of consciousness.

“If someone told me that I could live my life again free of depression provided I was willing to give up the gifts depression has given me–the depth of awareness, the expanded consciousness, the increased sensitivity, the awareness of limitation, the tenderness of love, the meaning of friendship, the appreciation of life, the joy of a passionate heart–I would say, ‘This is a Faustian bargain! Give me my depressions. Let the darkness descend. But do not take away the gifts that depression, with the help of some unseen hand, has dredged up from the deep ocean of my soul and strewn along the shores of my life. I can endure darkness if I must; but I cannot lie without these gifts. I cannot live without my soul.

― David Elkins, Beyond Religion: A Personal Program for Building a Spiritual Life Outside the Walls of Traditional Religion

“Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart… filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever. Even though you grew up and found you could never quite bring back the magic feeling of this night, the melody would stay in your heart always – a song for all the years.”

If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle — absolute busyness — then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy — and without consciousness. Gunther Grass.

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the old proverbial recovery through ancient eyes

SO SORRY ABOUT THE ADS

Just thought I would make a note that Wordpress inserts the ADS on any of us who use their site for free. I have no say in what, where or when they appear. I hope you are able to ignore them. I have my reasons for not paying for the Upgraded Sites but I know the ADS are a right pest and for that, I am sorry.

SILVERBIRD 3: THE SILVER BIRD 3

PADDING OUT MODERN RECOVERY BY USING OLDER AND WISER HEADS.

The images are drawn primarily from my life on the Northern Rivers of NSW, AUSTRALIA with some family input from Other Places and Graphics chosen randomly.
The Wisdoms are collected from all manner of places and include a range of Australian Poetry. Take your Time. Reflect on the Images and the Words. They might be saying more to you than you at first realise.

IZZY FOREAL 18 APRIL 1949 TO 21 JUNE 2014

The man I loved ran into the Forest one morning and never came home. He died beside the Bush Track he loved in Bongil Bongil from a heart attack.
Now for the Old Proverbial Recovery.
LET 'ER RIP, IZZY. LET 'ER RIP.

NEWS OF BOB EARLE

Marc
4/18/2015 — Yes.. I found him. Well. Kind of. News of him anyways. He’s living in Nevada and from what I understand he has suffered some seriously declining health in the past few months. I talked to a friend of his who is in regular contact with him who said he’s in and out of the hospital. I am going to get an address of his friend that I can send a message to Bobby thanking him for all he’s given us/me. I will not post that address. However if people want to send me their note of gratitude I will gladly include it with mine — it in one big envelop to send. Time is of the essence as I will probably send my letter within a couple weeks of the posted date above.
OPR - I will get an address for Marc. Until then, you can post a comment on the page. BOB EARLE